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Three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka has suffered a second-round exit at the Madrid Masters. The number three-seed, who had a first-round bye, was stunned by unseeded Frenchman Benoit Paire. The 28-year-old French made it past the world number three in a three-setter 7-5 4-6 6-2.
Paire won the last four games of the match to end the campaign of Wawrinka. He hit 10 aces and broke the serve of the Swiss five times in an hour and 48 minutes spent on the court. Before the match, Paire believed that he could end on the winning side against Wawrinka.
He now has three wins and seven losses against the 32-year-old. The world number 52 will be battling against Uruguay's Pablo Cuevas for a place in the quarter-final. Promising Alexander Zverev had to dig deep in order to prolong his campaign in Madrid.
The 20-year-old created a comeback against seventh-seed Marin Cilic to reach the next round 6-7 (3) 6-3 6-4. Germany's Zverev converted 3-of-11 of his break point chances and saved 7-of-8 of the Croatian's break point tries.
The match came to an end after two hours and 34 minutes of action. Zverev is now set to face next 11th-seed Tomas Berdych on Thursday. Flashy Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov has continued to perform well on the clay courts of Madrid.
The 25-year-old handed a straight set loss to the big-serving Ivo Karlovic in an hour and 15 minutes of play 6-3 7-5. The Bulgarian fired nine aces and won 35-of-40 points played behind his first serve. He broke the Croatian twice during the match while losing none of his service games.
Austria's Dominic Thiem is set to be Dimitrov's next opponent at the Madrid event. Meanwhile, lucky loser Borna Coric made it past qualifier Pierre-Hugues Herbert in two sets 7-5 6-4. Full results:
Photo by Twitter/@MutuaMadridOpen
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